Twitter take up and take off

I’ve been using Twitter fairly regularly now for about four months. Most of the people I follow and who follow me are in some way connected with the marketing industry. Some are in Asia, most are in the US and a handful are in the UK, though this number is thankfully growing. Nearly all are work connected. And this is where I think Twitter at the minute is a bit flawed.

Twitter may struggle to break out of the tech and marketing nerds for one fundamental reason: can you explain it’s value to your mum in under 140 characters?!

With Facebook, I could: “Facebook is me online mum”… Twitter: “Right mum, Twitter is this cool new platform which enables you to see what I’m doing every time I update via the site or on my mobile”… “That’s great Timbo, hmmm, why do I need to know that?” (To be honest, my old dear probably would want to know what I was up to, she’s very proud y’see). Ok, my Twitter definition may have been under 140 characters, but I definitely could not answer her follow-up question without eventually resorting to “You just do, alright mum”.

Now, in a professional capacity, Twitter is good. I can chuckle at Jemima Kiss taking the piss out of PR pitches, ask questions of the group, seek insight on an issue, network and jot down thoughts that hit me throughout the day.

There are of course practical uses outside of work which Twitter brings to the table, for example, gone are the days of sending multiple texts out; just send one tweet to those that are following you. I really do believe in Twitter and it’s potential. It will be interesting to see when we are all walking around with the net in our pockets, how Twitter will be used. In the mean time, I strongly recommend you check out Jemima’s post on Twitter take up. She puts it far better than I could ans is a great advocate for Twitter. And check out the Radio 4 piece too- I can just imagine John Humphrey rolling his eyes at the story- ‘another bit of silly tech tat’. We’ll see John, we’ll see.